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At this period the savage Wends and the robber-castles of North Germany were yielding to the prowess of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, and the powerful Hanseatic League was uniting its free cities and cementing its commercial interests, of which Berlin was erelong to be a part, a League which was to sweep the Baltic by its fleets, and to set up and dethrone kings by its armies.
Even the chivalric tales of the feudal times of Germany grow tame beside these earlier and darker histories. The fallen fortresses of the Rhine, or the robber-castles of the Odenwald had not for me so exciting an interest as the shapeless ruins cumbering these lonely mountains.
Robbers and robber-castles have long since passed away, and the people, rough and uncouth as they may at first seem, are as kindly-hearted as they are honest. Among them was born and in their incomprehensible dialect wrote Hebel, the German Burns. We dislike the practice of using the name of one author as the characteristic designation of another.
Even the chivalric tales of the feudal times of Germany grow tame beside these earlier and darker histories. The fallen fortresses of the Rhine or the robber-castles of the Odenwald had not for me so exciting an interest as the shapeless ruins cumbering these lonely mountains.
Jobst tried at first to do some governing; but finding all very anarchic, grew unhopeful; took to making matters easy for himself. Robber-castles flourished; all else decayed. The Towns suffered much; any trade they might have had, going to wreck in this manner. Not to speak of private feuds, which abounded ad libitum.
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